Back when my days were filled with home visiting, classes, multiple museums, tutoring sessions and volunteer events*, I found the joys of color-coding my schedule. Color-coding was my way of making sure I didn’t find myself driving half an hour east when I should have been driving an hour west. There are times I miss that version of an eighty hour work week that tossed me in bed with pneumonia one November.

This November, though not the same kind of busy, is going to be a busy one. I’m rather looking forward to this….

November 5th – ThePeddler’s Market – I was so hoping to earn a space at this event. But, it seems no one has dropped out yet. With two days to go, I will be surprised if I get the phone call. Instead, I will be going as a buyer. This is a nice, often packed, selling event where bargains are to be had at the end of the NY antiquing season. I have a short list of things others are looking for. (This happens to be a year that the Symposium and Peddler’s Market are not on the same weekend.)

November 11th – I’ll be heading to my Favorite arts and crafts sale – Granger Homestead’s ChristKindle Market. The front yard of this historic house museum in Canandaigua, is filled with huge tents and decked for Christmas. Inside the tents are smaller tents, each with local artists and craftsman, ranging from painters to wood-workers, doll makers to potters. I am on a quest for a certain item for a gift.

November 12th – Is the Genesee Country Village and Museum’s Domestic Skills Symposium. This year’s presenters will be discussing Outer Wear, Funeral Food, Early American Cosmetics, Coverlets and the History of Bitters. Could there be a more information packed day? Oh, and there will be food – “Traditional Mourning Food.”

November 13th – Is Millinery in Miniature, my workshop at the Symposium. I will spend the day showing others how to work with straw, while making a doll size hat.

November 19th – I will be back out at GCV for Preparing for the Holidays. Making Christmas gifts will be the theme of the day for those of us in Foster Tuffs, on the Village Square. I have several gift ideas in mind to work on while there. I do need to find a bottle, or tin if lacking, in the house for taking the emery in.

November 20th to 27th – Immediately following Preparing for the Holidays, I am going to roll into a writing lock down. The week of my Thanksgiving recess I will be finishing the writing and formatting of a new Winter Hood Pattern. (I am also hoping to get the car’s exhaust worked on as well. Our presence is a little too well announced at present.)

Weekly – I need to make at least one winter bonnet and one gift item for the Christmas Holiday Shop in my Etsy Shop. I am going to try to have that ready on the 20th as well.

November 30th – All details must be in place for a December 1st launch of the new Winter Hood Pattern.

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My “day job” consisted of home visits in 6 school districts for at-risk families in a literacy program. On the weekends, I managed the gallery, then by a different name, at GCVM. In the evenings, I ran a tutoring center. I was also averaging 10-13 reenacting/living history events a year. I added morning school tours for Mills Mansion. Oh, there was an archeological dig in there too.